We took a day cruise to Cabbage Key https://cabbagekey.com/ for lunch on Thursday, May 10th. It is about a 2.5 hour cruise from our slip at Burnt Store Marina. The ride was a little warm with a tail wind and not much breeze to keep us cool. The skies were a bit overcast but no rain was in the forecast.
We anchored off of the GICW across from the channel to Cabbage Key. We anchored in about 10ft. of water with plenty of room. We dropped the dinghy and headed in to Cabbage Key for lunch.
We beached the dinghy next to the docks, which appear to be for larger boats, and walked through the weeds to the beach.
It was a weekday in the off season so the crowds were not too bad. Ferries come in from Port Charlotte and Captiva dropping off people for the restaurant. It was a nice day so we decided to sit outside on the patio overlooking the water.
Lunch was very good, I had blackened grouper over rice and beans and Elaine had the Stone Crab lunch. There were only five days left in the stone crab season. The drinks were small and the beer list was very thin. Service was excellent, very attentive and friendly.
After lunch we walked around a little and saw the tortoises moving about the property.
The ride back home was a little more comfortable. The boat rocks less going into the wind so the ride was smooth. As we were approaching our entrance channel we realized this was our first cruise where we had not seen dolphins. As we were saying this we looked up the channel and saw two dolphins swimming towards us. They turned around and followed us into the marina and hung out by the fuel dock for a while. Better late than never.
